Then, President Reagan also was seeking a second term after a severe recession that sent unemployment soaring into double digits. His approval ratings that April were in the low 50s. Obama's now are just below 50 percent.

But as Election Day neared, Reagan benefited from a surging recovery and swamped Democrat Walter Mondale. Obama still faces stubbornly high joblessness and anemic growth.

Obama was campaigning Wednesday in Ohio and Michigan — battleground states hard hit by the recession and home in the 1980s to blue-collar "Reagan Democrats."

Obama even tried renaming his "Buffett Rule" proposal for higher taxes on millionaires to "the Reagan Rule" because Reagan supported closing tax loopholes.

But Reagan only favored closing certain ones and never advocated raising taxes on the wealthy as have Obama and billionaire investor Warren Buffett. Republicans fumed, with House Speaker John Boehner calling Obama's gambit "pathetic."

Romney claims the president is trying to hide his identity as a liberal who promotes government programs instead of individual opportunity — the antithesis of Reagan.